


A Plan for the Bad Days

by orphan_account



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Logan is Virgil's Dad, Platonic Analogical - Freeform, he just wants to help his son, his dad helps him, just literal fluff, logan works hard, parental analogical, parental analogical is beautiful, soft, virgil has a bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-20 00:36:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20666420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Virgil has several obvious signs of a bad day:Virgil will always slam the door a little harder than necessary. Not too loud, he hates that, but more of a forceful shove.Virgil will go upstairs, without dropping his backpack by the door, without greeting Logan, and close the door to his bedroom harshly.Virgil will play loud music and not come down for dinner.*****Virgil has a bad day. Luckily, Logan knows exactly how to help his son.





	A Plan for the Bad Days

**Author's Note:**

> the only warning i can think of is that virgil has a bad day. we don't actually hear about the bad day, but we get his reactions to it. if there's any other warnings i should add please let me know!

Virgil has a lot of bad days.

Thusly, Logan has learned how to identify when his son has a bad day, and has formulated a plan to help him. 

Virgil has several obvious signs of a bad day:

  1. Virgil will always slam the door a little harder than necessary. Not too loud, he hates that, but more of a forceful shove.
  2. Virgil will go upstairs, without dropping his backpack by the door, without greeting Logan, and close the door to his bedroom harshly.
  3. Virgil will play loud music and not come down for dinner. 

Logan had taken a while to learn how to help his son. Learning the ins and outs of Virgil’s behavior and how to help versus hurt had been difficult, especially because Logan knows he isn’t always the most patient or understanding person when it comes to feelings. 

But Virgil is his son, and he loves him. So he tries.

Now, after several years, Logan has a full-proof plan for how to help Virgil.

  1. Virgil slams the door a little harder than necessary. Not too loud, he hates that, but more of a forceful shove.

Logan closes his laptop gently when the door opens, but then immediately opens it to stare at a black screen when it slams. Virgil needs to cool off first. Alone time is key for him, and the first part of the plan involves leaving his son alone to blow off some steam. 

  1. Virgil goes upstairs, without dropping his backpack by the door, without greeting Logan, and closes the door to his bedroom harshly.

After Virgil’s door closes, Logan sets his laptop on the couch and stands, stretching his arms above his head. He had replenished his stock of food for this particular situation, and is finding himself glad that he had gone to the store this morning.

Logan sets to work, grabbing boxes out of the cabinets and setting pans on the stovetop as he boils noodles and warms up a saucepan. Virgil loves spaghetti, and it’s one of his favorite comfort foods. Logan has become an expert at how to make it, simple as it was, and knows exactly how long to cook the noodles to make them the way Virgil likes them (a little soft for Logan’s taste, but this isn’t about him. It’s about Virgil.).

He pulls the prepackaged brownie mix and begins to fix it up as the water for the noodles boils.

Oven at 350. Sift the mix. Two eggs. Three tablespoons of water. One-third cup vegetable oil. Mix. Pour into greased 8 x 8 pan and swirl in peanut butter because Virgil loves it that way. Logan prefers jelly to peanut butter, and he thinks it makes him and Virgil complementary, in a way. The perfect match. 

  1. Virgil plays loud music and does not come down for dinner. 

This is less of an occurrence now that they have established somewhat of a routine for bad days. Now, Virgil goes upstairs and plays loud music. 

And Logan turns the television on at a normal volume (he can’t hear it over the music, but whatever volume it had been on previously works for him), and finish dinner. Virgil spends an hour or two in his room before he comes down. Long enough for the brownies to be done and the food to get cold.

Logan waits for him anyway.

When Virgil finally comes downstairs, he is always wearing his hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. 

This time, Logan has added something to his plan: he now has on his own hoodie and sweatpants (he had never owned or worn them before, but found them … soft. Comforting. He sees why Virgil prefers these garments on a bad day).

Virgil looks shocked, before speaking up, looking at Logan from where he stands on the bottom of the stairs. 

“Bad day for you too?”

“Hmmm?” Logan glances up from the kitchen sink where he is washing dishes. “Oh. No, I just wanted to match you. These particular clothing items are quite comfortable. I see why you enjoy them so much.”

Virgil didn’t usually smile on bad days. 

Virgil smiles at him, and Logan feels his chest untighten just a little.

They will do what they always do: heat up the dinner in the microwave. They will eat at the little kitchen table, leaving the TV playing in the living room, and then put their plates in the sink to be washed later (Logan would come downstairs the next morning and the dishes would be washed and dried and put away. He thinks it’s Virgil’s way of saying thank you). Then they will each grab too many brownies on a plate, large glasses of milk, and burrow into the couch. They will watch an ocean documentary, or a Disney movie, or start a new Netflix series. Virgil might tell him why today was bad. If he does, Logan will offer him physical comfort, and they will both pointedly ignore the tear tracks on Virgil’s face when he separates from the long hug. Whether he shares or not, Virgil will fall asleep there, and Logan will put a blanket on him and head upstairs to bed at precisely 11. 

And tomorrow they won’t talk about it, but Virgil will leave a little doodle on a post-it note. A smiling dog or a waving skeleton with the words “Love you dad” in messy scrawl, pressed to the front door, where Logan is sure to find it before he leaves for work. No matter how many times Logan tries to teach Virgil that there should be a common between you and dad, his son refuses to put it there. For a time it had irritated Logan, just a bit. Now he spots the lack of a comma and smiles at their little inside joke.

The note will join the others in his office, stuck to the walls and his desk and his windows and his message board. 

Logan is not good with feelings. They make little sense to him, even his own. But he loves his son, and he will do anything for him. Even plot out a specific plan on how to make him feel better. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a friend of mine, but I hope you like it! She pointed out that people are missing out with parental analogical because it is so soft and she's right. She's so right. 
> 
> Anyways! I'm my own beta reader so please please please do not hesitate to let me know about any mistakes! Come check out my tumblr (hickory-dickory-doc-k) or my discord (dee-dee#4855) and chat with me, fangirl with me, send me prompts, whichever! I love to talk :D


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